Glaciers open for summer skiing
Monday June 15, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

Last weekend the first French resort opened for glacier skiing, Les 2 Alpes, and Val Senales in Italy opened too.

A few resorts in Austria began summer skiing earlier this month while Tignes starts this coming weekend.

In Switzerland the Zermatt glacier is open all summer while its neighbour, Saas Fee, should open in a few weeks.

So what are glaciers like to ski on?

The first thing you need to do is drop any comparison with skiing in winter and just treat glacier skiing for what it is. 

Summer in the mountainsUsually it is icy first thing in the morning and by late morning it has turned to slush, but for a few hours in between it can be pretty good. 

There is plenty of other things to do in the summer in the mountains as well so glacier skiing should be seen as just one of the many things to do in the mountains in the summer.

It’s quite fun putting on your skis in the summer months. After all plenty of people here in the UK are using the indoor snow centres and the slopes there are only around 100m long, but in the Alps the slopes are considerably longer.

The views are better too.

Racing in Tignes in JulyPlanetSKI was in Tignes a couple of summers ago and combining a bit of skiing with walking, mountain biking, golf and just lying around in the sun. We have also been to Saas Fee, which has a better glacier in our opinion as the slopes are bigger and more varied.

The village is also prettier than Tignes with more things to do.

PlanetSKI will be in Saas Fee later in the summer so we will bring you a full report then.

For many though glacier skiing provides the only way to carry on skiing or snowboarding.

Racers and people doing teaching qualifications use them for professional purposes, while for those seriously addicted to snowsports it is the only place to be if you can’t get to the Southern Hemisphere.

Bookmark this page

Related Articles